Friday, October 01, 2010

Slate on Samhain Kindlerotica, I can smell the disdain from here.

"Christina Brashear, publisher of Samhain Books, explains that she usually makes one title in a series available as a freebie for two weeks, betting that some readers will pay for future titles."

"Amazon is distributing men's erotic fiction, and its bargain-basement Kindle pricing—in many cases, this material, too, is given away for free—means that some of it shows up on "best-seller" lists"

OMG, will nobody think of the children. Also, why does it matter whether it is for me, for women or for aardvarks? Or is this journalist literally incapable of believing that women download and buy erotic ebooks.

How Victorian.

"Is it porn? Well—would you tell your mother you were reading it?"

How Freudian.

"Verbal (as opposed to visual) porn for men is probably a niche taste."

Again, how have we gone from Samhain's free reads to talking about men as if they are the only one that either a) matter or b) are morally reprehensible consumers of the prurient (I am genuinely not sure which of these is the intended message. I think it is the latter).

"The Kindle, however, pushes Amazon over the line from mere enabler of erotica to promoter and producer."

Blah, blah, the children, etc. Clearly we are meant to think the answer is some kind of porn prohibition.

"And, certainly, as a loss-leader strategy, giving away racy stories might be an effective way to sell more Kindles."

Dude, were you not listening to Chrissy? It is a way publishers sell more books.

"It's hard to believe, though, that Amazon can wander too far down the path of peddling cheap-to-free porn without encountering pushback from Christian and conservative groups."

For self-sufficient grown-ups this is about as worrying as the 'Mother' test. Not that my mother would care, actually.

"...will the presence of e-books like Compromising Positions at the top of Amazon's charts sully the e-reader's reputation?"

OMG, porn, tee hee, [Giggle]. Wow, with willys and cooters. [blush] How embarrassing for Amazon that people actually want to read this stuff.

The Kindle article is just so overblown it's almost parody. On Noes! Porn on the interwebz! And the complete refusal to acknowledge it might not be men reading it. I love the scattering of words like "probably" throughout the piece, so savvy readers know that what he actually means is "well, it doesn't appeal to me, and I figure most people are like me, and I'm not going to do any research in case it challenges my preconceptions".